January 30, 20152014 GDP Growth Lags 2013 Rate, Due to Slower 4th Quarter GrowthA weak trade performance and a sharp reversal in military spending held GDP growth to 2.6 percent in the fourth quarter. This brought the full year growth (Q4 to Q4) to 2.5 percent, a modest slowing from the 3.1 percent rate in 2013. The growth rate of final demand in the fourth quarter was even weaker at 1.6 percent, as inventory accumulations added 0.82 percentage points to growth.

January 23, 2015Union Membership Byte 2015The share of the U.S. workforce that is a member of a union dipped 0.2 percentage points to 11.1 percent in 2014. The drop was on par with the average pace of decline in the union
membership rate since the early 1980s, when directly comparable data first became available.